I returned home from grocery shopping today, and noticed what looked to be a long string or rope on our patio. I wondered how I’d missed it upon leaving, or whether the wind had blown it onto our property.

Upon closer inspection, I discovered it was moving on its own. A long skinny snake perhaps? Closer still. What the– it was a long line of caterpillars! They were moving very slowly. I’m not sure the leader knew where he was going; there’s not much to eat where they were headed. He did seem obsessed with our wall, so I named him Donald.

After shooting some pictures, I looked it up on the internet: the caterpillars appear to be Pine Processionary Caterpillars. They are poisonous with stingy hairs that cause skin irritation. They are also one of the most social caterpillars around (The Pine Processionary raves are legendary in the insect world)… or perhaps they just like the smell of each other’s butts. They live off living pine trees, eating vast amounts of pine needles and defoliating whole trees.

Which is all fine and good, but defoliate some trees in another lifetime bubs. I was originally going to set them free, but once I learned how destructive they are, they all departed this world as one big smush. Donald was the first to go. Sorry guys, this is what happens when you have a bad leader.

This site can’t do video, but there’s a video on Instagram and Facebook of the entire procession here.

So far, in the ten months we’ve been in this house, we haven’t had to mess with very many unwelcome creatures.

There’s the occasional mouse in the pool, and in the heat of summer we had our share of yellow jackets and hornets. As summer began to wane, the flies came out in force. One of my daily duties was to go outside and rack up the kills. That’s Mister Fly Killer to you.

Of course if an occasional spider is unlucky enough to wander into our home, Carolyn’s “spidar” tracks them down almost immediately, whereupon she calls upon the Big Artillery (aka, me, the B.A.), who turns them into a 2D version of their former selves via the bottom of a shoe, the side of a magazine, or if they look appetizing, a spatula.

(Some of them do get a reprieve by being thrown outside if Carolyn isn’t looking.)

So while we’re certainly not pest-free, we’re not all that bothered by too many critters. Thankfully, the ones that might be especially bothersome by arming themselves with stinging hairs also oblige us by trudging across the landscape in an easy-to-spot procession. Maybe Donald should rethink that military parade thing, huh?

Anyway, not on my watch, you multi-footed vermin! Not on my watch!

My two friends, Cale and John Lee, with whom I visited Porto and spent some time tooling around Lisbon, invited me to join them in Grenada, Spain after they decided I couldn’t possibly annoy them any more than I already did.

Not knowing anything at all about Grenada, I looked up their national anthem first (as of course we all do before visiting a new culture). I edited it for brevity and with just some slight changes):

Hello Muddah, hello Faddah, here I am in, the city of Grenada!

Spain is very entertaining, and they say we’ll have some fun if it stops raining.

I went hiking with Cale and John Lee, the many sights were fun to see.

I won’t remember most of them though, because my retinas are burned from the Flamenco show.

Flying in coach ain’t for sissies, especially if your legs are longer than most missies.

All the Spanish hate Americans, until we offer, Sangria from our jericans!

Just kidding, they love no one better. Muddah, Faddah kindly disregard this letter!

With apologies to Allan Sherman, who most of you probably have never heard of, but that from was a famous song of his from 1963, when I was only 34.

Grenada is a town in the southern part of Spain with a population of about a quarter million. It is perhaps most famous for the Alhambra, which is a Moorish citadel and palace. It was a key (and last) fortress during the Muslim occupation of the Iberian Peninsula, when they marched up from Africa to expand their empire. They were finally thrown out in 1492, at which point the Spanish decided to celebrate by sending Christopher Columbus off the edge of the earth. Everyone hated Columbus, so they were hoping he’d just fall off and go away. When that didn’t happen, they sent Amerigo Vespucci to map the land and name it after someone other than Columbus. I’m glad he used his first name, I’m not sure I’d want to be called a Vespuccian.

One of the things we of course had to do was go see a flamenco show.

It was purple.

Actually, it was interesting to observe the gypsy influence on the dance. The presentation felt as if we were sneaking a peek into a gypsy camp. Or maybe it was just that the woman looked like a gypsy, truly.

She provided the bulk of the entertainment as far as I’m concerned (they also had a singer who shouted his words at the top of his lungs, a pretty good guitar player, and a male dancer). This flamenco-stomping grandmother’s facial expressions were priceless. I am not kidding when I say she often made the exact same face as this one from Carolyn. I mean, the exact same expression. Except she was homely, and Carolyn is anything but. We weren’t allowed to take pictures until the end, my guess is they enforce that because by then she’s too tired to continue making faces.

It seems the point of flamenco is to stomp as hard on the floor as you possibly can. My guess is that the dance originated in poorer areas where there were lots of cockroaches. The winner was whoever stomped the most cockroaches.

Now it’s a dance. We really expected something more akin to the picture to the right, but maybe they just humor grandma every so often.

Anyway, we still had a good time, but next time I’m going to want a preview of the dancers. The man was pretty good, and it was all rather charming, but it wasn’t quite what I expected. The one we went to was called the best show in town. I’d hate to see the facial expressions of the lesser ones.

The Alhrambra was definitely the highlight of the visit (aside from the delightful company of my companions of course). It’s a vast complex with many beautiful gardens and awesome architecture. I’m always impressed with what they were able to build way back when without any technology.

Just to keep things simple, a slide show of the best of Alhambra is below this 3D image of the place. We’re the little dots on top of the tower looking at the view of a giant leather handbag.

 

We enlisted the aid of a tour guide to take us around the town. She wasn’t particularly good, but we did learn some things along the way, little of which I remember, partly because she was a little hard to understand, plus she kept mispronounciating all sorts of words.

We tipped her well anyway because she seemed a nice person.

She did tell one story I do recall that was kinda funny. Apparently the statue below was snuck –snuck!– onto the top of this building in the middle of the night without permission or permit. Ten years later, they still aren’t sure whether they’re going to leave it up or what to do with it.

In addition, apparently no one knows that the hell that is on the end of the horse’s tail. I think it might be flying horse poop. Or some kid hanging on for dear life. It’s a mystery.

Of course no blog post would be complete without presenting a Door of the Day. I have to carry the torch in Carolyn’s absence!

And here are some photos of the architecture around town:

Below is the view from our room at the apartment we stayed in. We were right in the middle of the action, which largely consists of shop after shop of Islamic-influenced clothing, art, and trinkets, all of them offering virtually the same thing at roughly the same prices. It’s like going to a grocery store where the fruit is nothing but bananas.

Below are some panoramic shots. The first one is of a Coliseum-esque structure and is completely round, I just twirled in a circle until I fell down from dizziness. What I won’t do to get my loyal readers a great shot!

Unfortunately, graffiti is ever present, even on historic sites:

Some of you will get it, some won’t.

After getting drunk on 18 sangrias and wandering around town, arm in arm, singing Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah! at the top of our lungs (to the bafflement of virtually everyone), we woke up the next morning, poured some sangria over our Cheerios, and then went our separate ways. I had a long layover in Madrid, and so decided to take the train into town to just wander around. Here are some of the sights:

Of course, no visit to Madrid would be complete without visiting the famous Trump Madrid Hotel. Oh, wait, something tells me this isn’t a Trump building. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but the clue is there somewhere…

A big thing in Madrid, at least on this square, was a bunch of characters in various costumes, posing for a picture and a tip. This guy is holding himself up with one hand. He did it for hours! Some Spanish people are really strong!

Of course, occasionally you could peek behind the scenes. I guess you could say the guy in the yellow boots took it literally when he was told to get his head out of his ass.

This lady had the ingenious idea to paint herself up like she was made of sand. She just sat there with her eyes closed the entire time, even as these school kids came in for a closer look. She just kept napping. Not a bad gig: sit on a chair and nap all day while people put coins in your hat. Just slightly more work than my retirement, but it pays better.

I couldn’t help but get a kick out of the sign below. And of course I had to disprove the idea by physically entering. Maybe they mean it’s physically impossible to enter if you’re only 1.8 meters tall, which is about 4 gallons in metric.

The Madrid airport is yuuge. At 7,500 acres (52 centigrade in metric), it is the largest airport in Europe in terms of physical size. I had plenty of time when I got back there after visiting downtown Madrid, so I walked in a straight line for seven million centimeters, at which point I needed to call a cab to get back to my gate. Unfortunately, cabs don’t operate inside the terminal, so I just sat on someone’s cart who appeared to be headed my way. You can always get away with a lot when you don’t speak the native language.

So there you have it. For less than a couple hundred euros, I could fly from Lisboa to two beautiful cities in Spain. I’ll have to take Carolyn back to Madrid; I only skimmed the surface, and it’s quite a bustling city. More cosmopolitan than Lisboa, but I’ll still take Lisboa any day, because it’s cute enough to pinch its little Portuguese cheeks!

Back in July of last year (which was 2017 in case you’re reading this in 2098 after unearthing my old laptop from the strata of dirt beneath what used to be our house), Carolyn and I made the three hour drive up to Porto, where we we ended up just being drunk on port for four days and so don’t remember anything. Ok, I’m lying. We were only drunk for three days. The other day we were recovering from the first three so we could drive home.

Anyway, I made the trip again with two friends I originally met at Burning Man, Cale and John Lee. They drink a lot less port than Carolyn, so I barely got really, really drunk. Which was good because it was only a one-day trip and neither of them know how to drive on the opposite side of the road. Which is good because they don’t do that here, unless you’re on a motorcycle, or they’re passing you while continuously honking because you were only doing 100 miles an hour on the freeway.

After a nice sandwich lunch (it’s hard to find a bad meal in Portugal… unless I’m making dinner), our first stop was to a famous bookstore, called “Livraria Lello,” which means, “Yellow Bookstore.” Except not in Portuguese. That’s only in little kid language. Not sure what lello means otherwise. Maybe the founder’s kid named it when he was three after mistakenly thinking he was being asked what color his pee was when he was really being asked “What color it should it be?”

The signature decor was a massive staircase that went up all the way to the next floor, which, surprisingly, had more books.

It looked more like a library than a bookstore, except a library that prices all their books, isn’t quiet, has a massive staircase, doesn’t loan out books, doesn’t offer library cards, plus has an entrance fee. Although you get your fee back as a discount if you buy a book.

A lot of the books were actually in English (not that I can read that anymore), although of course the Portuguese language dominated most of the offerings. Nothing in French I could see, probably because they’re so rude. Nothing in Swahili either, because that’s only spoken in shithole countries by people living in huts.

I almost bought this book because it’s pretty funny, at least the parts I read after tearing open the protective plastic covering and setting off a bunch of alarms. But I didn’t buy it because I didn’t want to carry it around all day, plus I didn’t want to get mistaken for a doctor. Actually, Cale is a doctor, which made me feel better about his driving on the wrong side of the road. Anyway, I was intrigued with it because it highlights all the silly things people believe. And if you think whatever you believe is now so sophisticated and modern, trust me, in another 50 years they’ll print another edition. In that one they’ll highlight that some people actually ignored 98% of the world’s climatologists and thought the world’s climate is impossible to be affected by human beings. That, in addition to daily enemas, are the cornerstones of silly beliefs. Which is funny because with beliefs like that, who needs enemas?

It also had a stained glass skylight, which is perfect for a SWAT team to come crashing through if they used it in the movies, or someone steals a book.

They also had a very realistic display of a bunch of Portuguese kids. You can tell they’re Portuguese because they speak Portuguese (or would if they weren’t wax or whatever they were). Plus there are no blondes to be found. Plus we’re in like, uh, Portugal.

Trivia alert: Did you know that blond is for boys and blonde is for girls? And Blondie is only for comic strips.

This lady is in the back room working on her diary. So we took pictures in order to report her screwing off to management. Actually, she’s restoring a 100+ year-old book. It takes her about a month to restore the entire thing. She goes through each page, cleaning and fixing, etc. After they restore it, they throw it in a bonfire in order to reenact Tru- er, Hitler’s edicts.

Trivia alert 2: Did you know Portugal was neutral during World War II? It ended up being a strategic departure point to escape Europe. This is a big plot point in Casablanca.

Trivia alert 3: Did you know “Play it again Sam” is never spoken in that movie? All he says is, “Play it Sam.” Which is odd, because the piano player’s name was Horace.

The corner of this building is decorated by a rabbit made from trash found behind barber shops. You know, because that’s where all the hares are. Interestingly, the car is not a VW rabbit. You’d think it would be a VW rabbit-only parking zone.

We took a tram ride on, of all things, a tram. We were treated to a great view of the city, but mostly we just took it so we wouldn’t have to walk back up the 542 steps it took to get down to the river. Like Lisboa, Porto is as hilly as Kim Kardashian.

Because of all the hills, great views abound. Just not of Kim. Which is good, because I don’t particularly enjoy looking at her.

But I still had to take pictures of my companions to keep them happy.

Like so many places in Europe, a castle is a part of the skyline. Unfortunately, the knights are all dead, so it looks like it’s for sale (aluga-se means “say aluga” in Portuguese, which is their way of honking an old car horn because car horns are illegal in Portugal). Okay, I’m lying, it’s not their way of honking an old car horn. Their way of honking an old car horn is getting into an old car and being annoyed that you’re driving in front of them. And they’re not illegal. I’m reminded of that every time I drive.

Aluga-se actually means “for rent.” And the sign isn’t even for the castle. It’s for apartment below. Just cut a hole in the ceiling and you have a 24/7 view of a castle wall!

The trip showed me that while Carolyn and I are very excited to see lots of Europe, just because we visited someplace once doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go back. While I saw parts of Porto I remembered, I saw different parts of the city that I hadn’t seen before. Of course, it’s hard to see much through the bottom of a shot glass.

It’s a very pretty city, very clean, and definitely caters far more to English speakers than in Lisboa. Even the stop signs say “stop.” While that is also true for the rest of Portugal, the signs say it with a better accent there.

I’m pretty sure the sign on the right was erected by someone who just read this blog.

Anyway, the city’s climate is a little cooler than Lisbon’s, which is the main reason we didn’t settle there. That and we didn’t visit it until after we bought our house. When I saw it in a map I just thought it was showing where a very large wine store was.

So I’ll take her back sometime, and we’ll ride the tram and walk the boardwalk and probably see Douro Valley again, where the port originates. Maybe the lady will be done restoring the book by then, and I’ll get her started on my dog-eared copy of “Quackery.”

Since Carolyn is stuck in the states and as a result I am rather devoid of much in the way human contact (the Portuguese don’t count because so many of them are very short), I decided to go to the Lisbon Zoo and mingle with my fellow animals.

It’s a nice zoo- not overly large, but compares favorably to the zoo in Portland with about the same number of animals. They do have a dolphin show, which, combined with wandering around seeing all the other animals, made it a good three hour tour. A three hour tour. The weather started getting rough– oh wait, that’s a different show.

Without further ado here is the documented evidence of the visit (well, after this paragraph anyway… so there is just a bit more ado to do… and even a dodo). Thanks to baldsasquatch.com (which is this site in case you got here by accident), you can now visit The Lisbon Zoo virtually without forking over the 20.50 euro entrance fee. So send it to me. Okay I’ll discount it by half, you didn’t have to experience the smells.

20.50 euros seemed a little expensive, but some of that goes to helping animals in the wild where so many are threatened with extinction and many are going away forever. In fact, what we are seeing today is an extinction rate estimated by experts to be between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate. So while zoos kinda suck for the animals that are in there, they do play a part in helping some of them not go the way of the dodo. I’m sad that we don’t get to see dodos anymore. It would help to see someone more stupid than– oh never mind. I won’t go there. You fill in your own damn blank.

The animals were kind enough to erect a Christmas tree for their captors in the courtyard.

These rhinos aren’t horny but they were sure hungry. They must have cut off the horns for safety. What? Excuse me? What did you think I meant?

African buffalo and American buffalo in adjoining pens. I wouldn’t bet a buffalo nickel against the American buffalo’s butt getting kicked by the African version in a fair fight. Those horns don’t play second fiddle to anyone.

I made sure the camel’s feet weren’t in the picture because, y’know, this is a family-friendly blog and all.

These cute little meerkats were interesting, in that the pen was simply a wall of glass just a few feet high. You’d think they’d jump out pretty easily. After all, it’s something any other mere cat could easily do.

Many of the animal pens had at least five or six of the same large animals in it. Which is nice. The fella on the left could just about reach me over the fence, but I’ve seen enough internet videos of the horrific slobbery mess a giraffe’s tongue can make to not stick out my neck for that risk.

Only in Portugal can you buy an apartment that overlooks the elephant pen. I wonder how they advertise it? “Included: free elephant viewing 24/7! And we promise, you’ll barely notice the smell after a while, or until your husband farts for the fifth time in an hour, whichever comes first!”

This guy is digging through the neighbors’ trash, hoping to find a discarded copy of Playelephant.

Speaking of elephants, did you know they were self aware? They conducted a study whereby they put a huge mirror in front of one. The animal proceeded to figure out that it was his (could be a hers, but we’ll just use ‘his’ to keep it simple), and began checking out parts of his body he couldn’t otherwise see! True story.

The lion exhibit was pretty decent. You can even go around to the top and look down on them from above. They were of course, as usual, just lyin’ around.

Orangutans are one of my favorite animals. They were pretty calm on this day though, except for one that was chasing around a monkey that liked to taunt him and scamper away before he got caught. Apparently monkeys drive apes ape.

The cheetah pen was fairly impressive in that they were all walking around (there was at least 6 or 7 of them) and then they’d pass right by the glass enclosure and sometimes just stand there for a second or two and stare. The newbies do that because they think they’re ordering off the menu.

Just don’t ever play poker with them, because, y’know, they’re all cheetahs.

The chimps were hugging it out… you would too if you were trapped in a cage the rest of your life.

But their play area was pretty large… plenty of room for them to monkey around. Oops, I mean ape around.

They say the great apes, like the chimps, are our closest animal relatives. About 98% of the DNA in your genes is exactly the same as in chimpanzees, making you as closely related to a chimp as horses are to zebras. That said, I’m guessing the 2% of the DNA that went missing is somehow related to picking your butt and eating your poop, as this guy is doing.

Speaking of which, did you ever notice that humans may be the only animal with a butt whereby the actual anus is sandwiched between the biggest hunks of fat the body has? It’s as if evolution (or the creator, whichever your pleasure) said, “Hey, you may be related to the chimps- but we’re going to stop that butt-picking nonsense right here and now!” Thank God for that. I hate the taste of poop.

This is obviously a female monkey because of course, she has a mop attached.

The ocelot was nowhere to be seen. I think it’s false advertising. They should be called ocenones if they’re not going to show up.

It’s around Christmastime, so of course we have to have reindeer. Never mind that this isn’t really a reindeer. It’s a deer and it almost rained, so I guess it’s an almost rained deer. This drunken Santa doesn’t care anyway; he’s obviously still recovering from his busy workday a week ago.

Okay stop it. It took me more than a few minutes to photoshop that guy behind a chain link fence, which took away from my time to make a better joke. Wait ’til next year!

Oh my Sweet Baboo– how I love you so! What? Your butt is swollen just for me? I’m so flattered!

This is an impressive enclosure for the deer… what? Deer? You build a monument befitting the king of beasts, or at the least the orangutans, and you put plain ol’ deer in there? Management! Get me a dinosaur or something!

They named this the brown bear. I’m not sure why.

It looks like he’s saying, “Yeah, I just killed ‘im, so whataya gonna do about it?”

This Grey Bird (hey, if the animal above is named a Brown Bear, I assume this is named a Grey Bird) almost coulda pecked my eye out through the fence. Fortunately, it was too big a-strich.

Dammit, I’m sorry. I’m working on the material guys. I can’t hit a homer every time. Let me have a foul ball once in a while, okay? What? All of them are foul balls? Yeah, yeah, just look at the pictures and pipe down.

These guys put on a nice show feeding the pelicans. They got right up to the fence. Of course, they were speaking Portuguese the whole time (the trainers, not the pelicans), but I laughed when everyone else did just so I could fit in.

“Hey, we break out at midnight.” “Okay.” “Hey, we break out at midnight.” “You already said that.” “Of course I did, I’m a parrot, stupid.” “Oh.” “Yeah and by the way… hey, we break out at midnight.”

Tigers are some of the coolest cats around. They sleep 16-20 hours a day. It’s almost like they’re retired like me! Sadly, there’s only about 4,000 tigers left in the wild. 4,000! I killed more flies than that in my backyard last summer! What a loss to the world it would be to have this magnificent animal become extinct.

While not overly large, the Lisbon Zoo has some nice wide boulevards. Which is good because they have a McDonalds on site as well.

Speaking of dying (because of, you know, eating at McDonalds), the zoo had a touching feature whereby they have a large graveyard dedicated to just the animals. Not sure if there are any elephants in there or not.

Certainly one of the highlights of the zoo is the dolphin exhibition. I decided to sit and watch despite the growing worldwide awareness that in order to teach them to act like trained seals, they need to virtually torture and starve them until they become dependent on their human handlers. There may not be many of these shows left after a while. Despite all that, the dolphins seemed happy, I mean, they were smiling the whole time, even after the show was over.

They also had trained seals that acted like dolphins. I was very confused. I think they did that on porpoise.

This guy is moving through the water at two dolphinpower. Which begs the question, shouldn’t boat engines be rated by dolphinpower and not horsepower? I mean, horses can swim and everything, but I’d take a ten dolphinpower engine over a ten horsepower engine any day.

After the show I decided to approach the personnel in charge and demand that I get to interact with the dolphins personally or I was going to blow this dolphin training debacle thing wide open. They said something in Portuguese that sounded like swearing, and then told me in English to get lost. So I told them I was just a stupid American (“sou Americano estupido”) and I was all alone in Portugal, even on Christmas (all alone-o em PortaGAL onno Christmasso”). That didn’t impress them either. So I gave them 100 euros and they gave me a life vest and told me to go ahead on in.

Just kiddin’, these pictures are from 2006 in Mexico. You can tell because I still have a teensy bit of hair on top, plus I’m obviously recovering from a margarita hangover.

All in all, The Lisbon Zoo is a nice zoo. I’d give it eight animal poops out of ten.

Now I can go to bed early on New Year’s Eve because I already partied like an animal.

In case you didn’t see it, Kevin & Carolyn’s episode on House Hunters International is now posted on YouTube here.

 

Before the holidays, we were curious as to how Portugal decorated for Christmas. We’re used to the all-consuming Christmas-is-everywhere in the US, but we’ve also seen some incredible displays, markets, and fairy tale villages from pictures all around Europe. We’re anxious to go see some of those next year.

Since the Portuguese are mostly a Catholic people, we assumed there would be plenty of decorations. Since Carolyn is stuck back in the US until January due to minor visa paperwork issues, I was given the task to go about town and take pictures of the decor. I first went out in the daytime, and saw mostly this:

I was a bit underwhelmed. If you look at the middle picture, you’ll see a bunch of white cones. At first I assumed they were either insect traps or some protective covering for the tree buds.

But then I was given the additional task of going back at night. And I’m glad I did. First of all, during the evening the white cones turn into a beautiful boulevard-lined display of lights:

So it’s obvious Christmas decorations here definitely are best viewed at night. There were lots of twinkly lights and displays all about town. Some of the merchants had lights or small displays, even as small (albeit humorous) as this one:

I did notice that homes generally don’t put up lights like they do in the US. I’m sure part of this, at least in Lisbon, is that most of the housing consists of multi-family dwellings. But even in Sesimbra, where there are more houses, there is little in the way of Christmas decor.

And so without further ado, here’s a collection of shots I took in Lisbon, presented in slide show format. It’s not long, a total of a couple of dozen pictures:

Many of the pictures above were taken in a mall, which was decorated from head to toe. I even discovered the mall has a skating rink, albeit sort of a miniature one (yeah, that’s the extent of it):

In what will seem at first like a very confusing segue, lot of people don’t realize that prostitution is legal in Portugal. I had to ponder that after stumbling across the below sign, knowing that “sem conta” means “without bill.” And so, I translated “bichos” the best I could, which meant that this looks like a place where the ladies maybe offer some Christmas cheer for free? I dunno:

Oh stop it. You knew I couldn’t go one blog without being irreverent. That said, “bichos” actually translates to “bugs,” and “sem” means “without,” so Apparently this is a place where bugs are allowed without bills. Yeah, I’m sure that’s it.

Anyway, there you have it. Christmas in Portugal. I’ll be all by my lonesome this Christmas, but as long as I’m in as beautiful a place like this, I’ll be fine. But I do miss minha querida (my sweetheart)! I can’t wait until she gets back. I’m only half the man I am than when I’m with her. Somehow that doesn’t translate to the same kind of weight loss though.

Merry Christmas and Feliz Natal to all!

 

I just completed a three week whirlwind tour of the Pacific Northwest, where I used to to call home. After visiting, I’m more clear than ever that our home is in Portugal. I just want to pinch Portugal’s cute little cheeks! It’s such a cute country. The U.S. is big, bad, loud, crowded, and expensive, with bullets flying everywhere. It turns out I didn’t need the flak jacket: the mass shootings for the week all happened elsewhere. But it did help keep me warm, so it wasn’t a completely wasted purchase.

Before leaving Portugal, I was emailing with another expat couple in Portgual who moved from Washington state to Porto. They challenged me to compare impressions after being out of the country for nearly a year. So I thought about it a lot while in the US.

These are the Top Three I came away with:

• Smiles and excuse me’s. While I love the Portuguese and their culture, smiling at strangers and saying “excuse me” after ramming your shopping cart into someone’s heel seems to be a purely American affectation. Especially in the retail stores. American store personnel are taught to be as friendly as possible to all customers. Portuguese store personnel act the same way as they do everywhere else. I rarely get asked if I need some help in Portugal, and catching the eye of a stranger rarely results in a smile. I think Europeans feel it’s weird to smile at a complete stranger. Almost every time I went into a store in the US, I was asked if I needed any assistance, was smiled at often (I don’t think they were doing so because I looked so odd, looking all Portuguese and everything. After all, this a time when anyone living outside the US is suspect.) and heard “excuse me” more times in one day than in the last ten months in Portugal. Of course, they would say “desculpa,” but they don’t.

Despite that, the difference between the US and Portugal reminds me of the difference between Las Vegas and any small town. Vegas is loud, brash, noisy, and every single thing that goes on there is designed to pry money out of your wallet, while making you think you’d be so much happier just because you did so. After returning from the US, I feel like all this ambient noise suddenly went away. The hustle and bustle and rush and hurry and the pervasive advertising that YOU WON’T BE HAPPY UNLESS YOU BY THIS! or LOOK HOW SEXY YOU WILL LOOK IF YOU JUST BOUGHT THIS! assaulting you everywhere you go created a thrumming in my brain. The thrumming stopped as soon as I landed in Lisbon. Coincidentally, that’s when I shut off my iPod, but I’m sure that had nothing to do with it.

• Sticker shock. Holy moley America is expensive! It felt like we were in London! One quick trip to Fred Meyer for a few start-up groceries netted us a bigger grocery bill than I think we’ve ever had in Portugal. It’s gonna take a few months of our cheaper living here just to recover from the monetary outflow from a visit to the states. I wonder if banks offer “expat travel to the US” loans.

• I like driving in Europe better than the US. Once upon a time, America was called the Land of the Free. Its Constitution was unique and ground-breaking, and truly established freedoms most of the world hadn’t yet seen.

However, today, it might be more accurate to call it The Land of the Lawsuit or the Land of Hyper-Safety (besides all the guns, which many Americans believe actually keep them safer, despite all the data proving otherwise). Between the fear of lawsuits and the desire to protect every single citizen from any harm, the roads in the US are chockfull of signs and rules and cops ready to ruin your day. Theoretically that’s all supposed to make you safer, but as I mentioned in a previous blog, a little research into car accident rates in Portugal vs. the US shows fewer accidents per person in Portugal. On the freeway, their speed signs and minimums, not maximums. Nary a cop is in sight to give you speeding tickets. And the freeway flows with efficiency, while in the US it’s a hodgepodge of cars and semis going different speeds in every lane. Plus the traffic. Oh meu Deus. Seattle and Portland’s freeways have become slow-moving parking lots, nearly 24 hours a day. Sure, there’s traffic in Lisbon, but it’s not everywhere all the time. I could barely handle another day of driving there.

We were treated to two separate Thanksgiving meals with both our respective families. It was great seeing all the kids and the grandkids. That’s the hardest thing about living across the ocean. However, I used to see my grandparents –who were a couple of my favorite people– every couple of years or so, and loved them all the same. Or maybe all the more precisely because I didn’t see them all the time, when their old-people-ness might start to get annoying.

Ahhh… so I am back home. I love it here. Except for the fact the Carolyn had to stay in the states because of fingerprinting problems with the FBI, meaning she has to either stay out of the country for 90 days or get her visa in the meantime, the latter of which is the plan, the FBI willing. We had to change our flights at the last minute because of all this, and elected to keep mine the same so our poor little house wasn’t sitting all alone for so long. Now I’m the one sitting here all alone for so long. But I can deal with it better than a house because a house, you know, doesn’t actually have a brain or anything. Although it sure seemed to look happy upon my return.

 

The landing in Lisbon was spectacular with clear blue skies. Our house is on that upper left peninsula there somewhere. And that’s the bridge modeled after the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. And the beautiful hodgepodge of Lisbon; our short-term rental apartment is off in the distance near the top somewhere.

It occurred to me the other day that being in the middle of learning a language is a pretty unique place to be. Everyone except those in the middle of doing so either already know a second language or not (or in some cases, not even one). It’s a very small minority who are in the middle of learning one. Accordingly, there are things students like us notice that everyone else doesn’t think much about.

It’s hard to think of the things we take for granted in English because, well, we take them for granted. But heck, let’s take the phrase, “Taking it for granted.” Try and teach that to someone who doesn’t speak English. “Where am I supposed to take it? Why is ‘granted’ suddenly a noun? And why is a past tense word still the same whether you are currently taking it for granted, already took it for granted, or are about to take it for granted? Shouldn’t it be ‘taking it for granting?'” Oy, I’m glad I’ve already learnded most of my English. I don’t want to be no moran.

So obviously Portuguese doesn’t have a monopoly on linguistic confusion. As a side note, I would like to compliment the inventors of Portuguese for setting up the spelling to be a lot more consistent than English. I have little trouble remembering how to spell a word. There don’t seem to be as many exceptions as in English, they’re pretty much spelled the way they sound. Now if I could only figure out what those sounds actually mean.

To help us learn Portuguese, along with our awesome tutor Natalia, we use an online program called Memrise. It’s very good. Without a live-in maid or Portuguese captive in the basement to encourage us to speak Portuguese consistently, it’s our best daily friend for reminding us how stupid our brains are.

One of the things they do is give you a Portuguese word or phrase, and then the English translation, and then below that the literal translation. Hilarity sometimes ensues.

Here’s an example as to why translations can be so challenging. They tell us “Dar uma volta.” means “to go for a walk.” Really? “To give one turn-around” is the literal translation? What if I just want to walk straight??

So if you want to take Spot out to do his doody on the neighbor’s lawn (the definition of a walk for many), you would say this. I guess it’s a good thing dogs don’t understand much of anything you say, because they’d think they were supposed to get ready for bed. (I will say it is interesting to hear them bark in Portuguese.)

 

The “o’s” and the “a’s” (“oh!” for male and “ah!” for female) are a constant source of annoyance for us. You really needed to add a “the” in front of “what do you want to do today?” And which word is the male noun the “o” is referring to? If it’s “hoje,” that’s way at the end of the sentence… I’ve forgotten what the “o” was even for by the time I get to the end of that. And why is it male? A day seems a lot more vaginal than penile to me.

The male or female for every noun is one of the other challenges I’ve griped about. I’d like to go back in time and find the inventor of this language, neuter him, and then ask him/her if he/she should now be referred to as a male or female, or perhaps he wants to rethink this whole gender thing? Hmm?

A friend we have in Portugal expressed the sentiment that it makes for a much richer language, indicating that English was a little more, well, dry (which may explain the English, after all). All I know is that it adds one more level of difficulty. For instance, we’ve learned that “novo” means “new.” Accordingly, “New York” is “Novo Iorque,” right? Oh no! You see, “Iorque” is a female word! I don’t even have any idea what a York or a Iorque is, but whatever it is, it means that the proper spelling of “New York” is “Nova Iorque.” That’s just not fair. And don’t even think about asking me what a Brunswick or a Hampshire is, much less expect me to know which one is supposed to have a penis or vagina.

Another idiosyncrasy (“idiossincrasia” – I do like that a lot of our words are similar, like “banana,” which is “banana” in Portuguese) involves the word “em,” which means “in.” So when you want to say, “I live in Sesimbra,” you say, “Vivo em Sesimbra.” Accordingly, if you live in Porto, you would say, “Vivo em Porto,” right? Oh no, you stupid grasshopper! You would say, “Vivo no Porto.”

“No” in Portuguese is one of the hardest words to learn, believe it or not. Part of that is because “no” is usually the second word babies learn, right after “idiosyncrasy.” Or maybe it’s “Mom,” depending on your upbringing. Anyway, it’s very difficult to see the word “no” and not automatically think of no-ness. The word “no” has saved our lives and butt-pain countless times over the years, so we react to it like most women react to spiders, or Harvey Weinstein.

In Portuguese, it means “at the.” So when you live in Porto, you live “at the Porto,” because Porto is a thing, not just a city. So do you “vivo no Nova Iorque?” Iorque is a female thing, after all. To be honest, I have no idea, yet (not that I’ll remember ten seconds after being told).

Anyway, after all this, even if I lived in New York, I’d still just say, “Sou Americano estupido.”

 

 

While the stores in Portugal don’t go all out like in the states (where Halloween decor pretty much turns major stores into a scene from the Exorcist sponsored by M&Ms), it’s not hard to find costumes, masks and a bit of candy in various stores we’ve been into. I don’t know if they trick or treat; I didn’t bother checking because due to our location in the country, combined with an imposing green gate in front of our house (that also now has with a big red X drawn in blood to signify that Americans live there), I don’t expect any trick or treaters at our house.

If someone does happen to ring our buzzer, I’ll just toss one of the dead rats from our pool over the fence while screaming, “There’s your trick you little morcego-man!” (Morcego means “bat” in Portuguese.)

Anyway, in honor of the holiday we decided to go see o cemitério grande: Prazeres Cemetery, which is the largest cemetery in Lisbon. It was created in 1833 after an outbreak of a cholera epidemic. I didn’t know that until after we’d been there, so now we have to make a damned doctor’s appointment to make sure we didn’t catch anything. The Portuguese never tell us this stuff!

It sits in the middle of Lisbon on top of a cliff, towering above most everything else. We see it every time we drive over the bridge into Lisbon. It’s quite massive. I always find it interesting to see how cultures handle their dead; I have no idea if it translates into how cultures handle their living. But at least in this cemetery, the Portuguese really go all out with their tombs. I’m sure some of the tombs there cost more than some houses!

 

If you scroll down this blog a ways, right above the “Top Ten Things We Love About Portugal” list, you’ll see the image to the right:

The truth is, today, we kinda might actually now be inclined to make an entry for Number One, entitled: “The Portuguese Bureaucracy.”

Although “hate” is probably too strong a word. While we’ve occasionally been flummoxed, led astray, or put in a chokehold while navigating the Portuguese Bureaucracy, we’ve mostly dealt with it with some degree of bemusement. This is because A) We’re guests here right now, so we’re not about to complain about our host especially when everything else is pretty much paradise, B) Some of the confusion can be attributed to the language and cultural barriers, and C) I give Portugal a lot of grace because despite the fact that it’s Europe’s oldest country, it actually is a relatively young country in terms of government, because they didn’t throw the yoke of their dictatorship off until the 1970’s. So they’re still figuring some of this stuff out.

My latest plunge into the bureaucratic morass involved getting a Portuguese driver’s license. I did a search online to see what I had to do and where I should do it. Searching in Google with the term: “documents needed for a portuguese driver’s license” gave me the following top result:

So I looked up where the closest “IMT,” or “Instituto da Mobilidade e dos Transportes” office was (their version of the DMV), and after dutifully filling out the IMT Modelo 13 form and gathering up the other documents, I confidently walked in and took the obligatory number (even though it was in metric, I still understood it), and waited about 20 minutes (which is a helluva lot less time than I usually wait for the DMV, even in metric time), after which I found myself in front of a reasonably pleasant government worker who spoke no English whatsoever.

That was fine, because I can say, “How are you?” and “Lunch was delicious,” and “There is a dog in my pants,” so we were able to muddle through, well, really to nowhere. I actually do know how to say, “I only speak and understand a little Portuguese, so can you please speak slowly?” in Portuguese. After I said that, she proceeded to repeat whatever she had just said, only slightly faster.

After it was clear I would not be able to understand her, and in turn, she had no interest in finding out why there was a dog in my pants, she called in another employee who knew English. He translated for us, delivering the unfortunate news that out of the four documents I had, only one of them was actually necessary, and that I would need three completely different ones that Google neglected to mention, one of which is a doctor’s note that I’m healthy enough to drive. The IMT Modelo 13 form was tossed dismissively to the side: “You don’t need that.”

Google clearly is just as flummoxed with Portuguese bureaucracy as we are.

Another document I was told I needed is a certification that my current US driver’s license is valid. When I asked where I could get such a thing (especially since in the US the driver’s license itself is generally considered enough proof of its validity, so I had no idea what they were talking about), they indicated that they, too, had no idea.

They want me to get a document I’ve never heard of, and they have no idea where I can get such a thing. Huh.

They did suggest maybe that I could contact the US embassy in Portugal to find out. So I did, because we’ve gotten to know them pretty well since we’ve had to get our fingerprints retaken and then taken again for a form to get our visas, and ohmigod I was going to write about that too but now this entry is already too long and my head hurts just thinking about that bureaucratic mess, part of which is the US’s fault. And the US has a 200 year head start on Portugal with its government bureaucracy. Anyway, our embassy helpfully responded that I needed to go to our state capitol and get an “Abstract of Driving Record,” duly certified by the Secretary of State with an apostile, which is kind of like an international notarization. (It’s a little known fact that Jesus needed twelve of those to get into heaven, because when you have an infinitely old bureaucracy, the necessary paperwork is ungodly.) What? Oh. Aposteeel. Not apostle. Okay, nevermind. Although I’m sure he only had to fill out form 09834-B and write a short essay about what it means to be in heaven for eternity, which, as we all know, is a very long time, even in metric.

So, in order to get a Portuguese driver’s license, which they require me to have after being in Portugal for six months, I have to fly back to the US to get a document first.

I fear there are too few of us Americans who are emigrating to Portugal to make a business out of this, but I remember when I moved into a new home, a helpful company provided a basket with all sorts of local coupons and information about the area. That would be a nice thing to have for a move like this.

Unfortunately, what’s true is that the documents required can sometimes vary from office to office. It literally wouldn’t surprise me if I went into another IMT office only to hear that they want four completely different documents. I’ve seen that very thing in action, trust me. After flying back to the US and getting that certification, I’m going to return to the IMT and take ten numbers from the number-dispensing machine and refuse to talk to anyone else except the woman I saw, despite our language barrier. She wrote down what I needed by hand, and by God, I’m going to hold her to it and not risk having someone else change the rules. I may even get an apostile on her note before I go back in.

In the end, my answer to the Google query would be, “Go to your local IMT office and ask them before you do anything.”

That’s the best advice you’ll ever get if you’re an American trying to switch to a Portuguese driver’s license.

 

After driving in Portugal for the last ten months or so (I can’t believe it has been that long!), I think I finally understand A) Why they drive so crazy and B) Why it actually makes sense.

The Swedish-born husband of our attorney says, “The Portuguese are so nice… until they get behind the wheel of a car, and then they turn into devils!”

It’s true. I’ve puzzled over that incongruity every time I’ve been on the road grimacing at the pesky motorcycles who weave in and out of traffic like flies in a windstorm, enduring the honks of irritated drivers if I take too long to make a right turn, and being startled by a car passing me on the left who wasn’t even in my rearview mirror two seconds before.

But now I get it. And it’s a system that actually works. Here’s my analysis as to why:

There are very few traffic cops. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a police car just sitting on the side of the road, ready to pounce on a traffic scofflaw. I’m not sure they even own radar guns. Either they decided they just don’t need them, or they can’t afford them. Either way, as a result, Portuguese society has apparently decided everyone will drive under a certain set of unwritten rules. And when virtually everyone agrees to a set of rules, who needs cops?

First of all, there are really no speed limit signs. On the freeways, you’ll see three different speed signs on the three lanes, with the left being the fastest and the right being the slowest. Trust me, if you actually drove in the left lane at the speed indicated, you’d quickly have a line of very irritated drivers behind you, their horns sounding like rabid geese, flashing their brights like they were transporting a woman in the final stages of labor. They would then pass you on the right making sure they swerved back in front of you within two centimeters of your bumper. Got the message yet buddy?

And so the meaning of those speed signs is actually: “Here are comparative speeds only.” In other words, if someone is driving 160 km/hr on the left, and you’re doing 140 km/hr (which is about 86 mph), you sure as hell better not be doing it in the left lane, despite the fact that in the US, it would net you a pretty hefty ticket. It’s not too out of line to say you can almost double most posted speed numbers to set proper expectations of actual speeds.

And you know what? It works. Everyone understands it, and they don’t need any cops to hand out speeding tickets.

According to a study conducted by the University of Michigan, Portugal has 12 road crashes per 100,000 population, while the US has 14. So even though they’re driving the freeways at 100 MPH, have no cops to keep things under control, and sometimes seem to drive like maniacs, they actually crash less per person than in the US.

In addition, our car insurance is about 33 euros a month. If memory serves, that’s a fair amount less than half of what we were paying in the US. If accidents were far more prevalent in Portugal, one would assume that out of all things, insurance would be the first place to reflect that.

Here’s how I think they accomplish all this:

There is a cultural/social agreement that everyone understands the following rules. If you violate these norms, someone will essentially feel obligated to let you know about it via their horn. So in a sense, the rules of the road are enforced by public shaming, with no hesitance to let you know when you’ve done something wrong.

The ten agreements I’ve observed are as follows:

1. The fastest drivers go on the left. If you’re not passing, you better be all the way on the right.
2. Use roundabouts properly.
3. If a pedestrian enters a crosswalk (zebra), stop to let them cross. Immediately. Slam on the brakes if you have to.
4. If a pedestrian tries to cross even a parking lot without being in a zebra, they’re fair game. You can even speed up to scare the hell out of them if you want.
5. There are no speed limits.
6. Motorcyclists can drive any way they want. They’re the ones who are going to lose in a crash anyway. Just watch out for them before you switch lanes.
7. Being polite and letting people into a line is very much appreciated. Not all of them do it, but I’ve received numerous gracious waves anytime I’ve done it, and I’ve seen it done far more often than in the US.
8. You can drive on the shoulder, or up on a sidewalk, or through a hedge to get around someone waiting to make a left hand turn.
9. Don’t be stupid.
10. Honk at anyone who violates any of the above.

That’s it. It’s all self-policing. Most everyone agrees to these things, and everyone drives with this knowledge.

Of course, without risk of fines (only of death and gruesome dismemberment I suppose), there are those who drive a little crazy. That’s to be expected. But because everyone understands the rules above, they don’t pose nearly the risk to themselves or other drivers as they would in the US.

I understand that none of this would work in the US, because the US doesn’t have a singular cultural mentality like Portugal. Unfortunately, this difference means that in the US, there is more of the idea that you try to get away with things while trying not to get caught. It’s all about dodging the authorities. In Portugal, it’s all about dodging the ire of everyone else on the road. Ironically, I think their more aggressive driving is a byproduct of a more congenial society. And in a way, it’s like every other driver is a cop.

The US can’t really get to the same place because there’s a big difference between pulling back fines, enforcement, and the omnipresence of the police, versus adding all of that to a system largely without them. If you eliminate the reliance on authority the US has, chaos would probably ensue. But if you don’t have it in the first place and self-policing is already entrenched, then, once you get used to a little bit of the craziness, it all starts to make sense.